We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident

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The Founding Fathers gave us democracy.

We have the moral responsibility to restore what was given to us, to take back what has been taken away by corrupt politicians of both major parties.  If the Democratic Party won’t restore American democracy, it will be up to Progressives to restore it.  If Democrats cave again and pass a travesty of a health care reform bill without a strong public option, there will no longer be any doubt that the two-party system has been corrupted beyond salvage.  If that happens, I believe progressives will have no choice but to dissolve all ties with the Democratic Party, establish the Progressive Party, and ask progressive Democrats in Congress and across this country to join us.  

When in the course of Democratic betrayals it becomes necessary for Progressives to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with the Democratic Party, and to establish ourselves as a New Party in the political system, our respect for the Constitution and the rule of law compels us to declare the causes which impel us to this separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that the Democratic Party is complicit in war crimes, that it is complicit in illegal NSA spying, that it is complicit in massive Wall Street fraud, that it no longer believes that all men are created equal, that it serves only the corporate masters of America, that it has granted them unalienable Rights, that among these are the right to plunder the Treasury, the right to control the media, the right to subvert the banking system, to corrupt the electoral system, to ravage our economy and reap the illicit profits of shock doctrine capitalism.

To enable the voices of citizens to be heard in the corridors of power, political parties have been instituted among Men, deriving their power from the support of their members. Whenever any political party becomes destructive of these ends, its supporters have the right to withdraw their support, and to establish a new party.  As Progressives, we have no choice left but to establish a new party, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in accordance with our responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the progressive values upon which it was founded.  

Present circumstances dictate that a political party long established should not be rejected for light and transient causes; but when a long train of abuses and betrayals, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce an entire nation under corporate Despotism, it is the right of Progressives, it is the duty of Progressives, to condemn that party, and to establish a new party for their future security.  

Such has been the patient sufferance of Progressives; and such is now the necessity which compels us to leave the Democratic Party.  The history of the present Democratic Party is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of corporate tyranny over the United States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

This Democratic Congress and Democratic President have refused to support single-payer health care, which is most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have refused to enforce Laws of immediate and pressing importance, they have refused to enforce the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they have utterly neglected to conduct themselves in accordance with the foundational principles of representative government.

They have refused to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as multiple other Laws beneficial for American citizens and absolutely necessary for the preservation of representative democracy.  They have thus relinquished their right to Represent us in the Legislature, a right we granted them, a right we must now take away.

They have called together Republicans to join them in obstructing comprehensive health care reform and have willingly slogged into a bipartisan quagmire, determined to protect the insurance industry while expecting Progressives to support the travesty of a bill that emerges from that Death Panel of Democracy they call the Senate Finance Committee.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing to investigate and prosecute the crimes of  the Bush Administration, while giving their Assent to the establishment of a national security state based upon endless war overseas and the crushing of civil liberties at home.

They have been complicit in confirming right wing Supreme Court justices who have empowered police to taser any American citizen at any time for any reason, who have destroyed the ability of unions to organize, who have empowered corporate interests to bribe and intimidate our elected representatives, thus rendering American citizens powerless to defend themselves against repeated exploitation and abuse.

They have kept among us, in violation of the Bill of Rights, NSA spies who are monitoring with impunity every phone call we make, every email we send, every form of communication we engage in no matter who we are or where we are.

They have confiscated 10 trillion of our taxpayer dollars on behalf of the Federal Reserve, which has given it to Wall Street criminals with no oversight and no accountability.

They have combined with Republicans to subject us to abuses of power and obstructions of justice in violation of our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their Assent to unconstitutional Acts of repressive Legislation such as the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act:

For enabling the Bush Administration to launch wars of aggression and occupation in violation of international law.

For protecting them from punishment for every war crime they have authorized to be committed upon anyone, anywhere in the world.

For decreeing that telecoms engaged in massive violations of the 4th Amendment are above the law, thus ensuring that they will not be held accountable for their crimes:

For complicity in depriving American citizens in many cases, of the benefit of habeas corpus and Trial by Jury:

For complicity in transporting them beyond the Seas to be tortured for pretended offences:

For complicity in abolishing the regulatory system which protected our banking system and economy from corporate exploitation and Wall Street fraud, establishing therein an Arbitrary government of Plutocrats with unlimited power:  

For complicity in taking away our Bill of Rights, for complicity in abolishing our most valuable Laws, for complicity in fundamentally altering the Forms of our Government, leaving only the illusion of democracy behind:

For complicity in plundering our Treasury, in ravaging our economy, in burning our Constitution, and in destroying the trust of the American people in their government:

For refusing to pass comprehensive campaign finance reform, thus investing in K Street lobbyists the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated representative Government, by declaring us out of their Protection, and by enabling economic elites to wage unrelenting class warfare against us.

They are at this time funding large Armies of troops, Blackwater mercenaries, and criminal contractors to complete the works of death, desolation, and war profiteering in Iraq, Afghanistan,and Pakistan under circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of a civilized nation.

They are allowing inciters of sedition, insurrection, assassination and treason to obstruct reform with threats of violence, they refuse to restore the Fairness Doctrine, thus subjecting an entire nation to the slanders and threats of deranged rightwing extremists parading around as great Americans while betraying everything America has ever stood for.  

In every stage of these Oppressions, progressives have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated betrayals.  A Party, whose character is thus marked by every act which defines craven cowardice and moral bankruptcy, is unfit to be supported by Progressives.

We have reminded Democrats time and time again of our grievances.  We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, we have implored them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably sever our connections and support if they continue.  But they have been deaf to the voice of justice, they have been deaf to our repeated appeals. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity of declaring our Separation, and hold the Democratic Party, as we hold the Republican Party, in contempt, and condemn them both as abusive and corrupt.

We, therefore, the Progressives of the United States of America, across the Netroots Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of History for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name of, and by Authority of the Founding Fathers who gave us this democracy and asked us to preserve it, solemnly publish and declare, that Progressives are, and of Right ought to be a new Political Party, that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Democratic Party, and that all political connection between us and the Democratic Party, is and ought to be totally dissolved.  

In support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance upon one another, with unwavering support for the Constitution and the rule of law, we mutually pledge that we will restore American democracy, no matter what sacrifices are required, no matter who stands in our way, no matter how long it takes, because we are Progressives, we are the conscience of America, we are America’s future, we are the change Americans can believe in.